The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for power management of electrical components. More specifically, the present invention concerns an arrangement for managing power consumption of multiple components concurrently.
There are many environments in which management of power consumption of electrical components is important. In one such example, where electrical components, such as laptops or other mobile communication devices, are powered by batteries, designers attempt to reduce the power consumption of various electrical components. This reduces the cooling requirements for the device. This also prolongs the lifetime of the battery in question or in the case of rechargeable batteries extends time between charges.
In many of these environments that call for attention to power consumption, the electrical components are capable of being directed to various power consumption states. For example, an electrical component while in use may be designated as active and thereby be in a first power consumption state. It is also possible that while that electrical component is not being utilized but is in a state waiting for utilization, sometimes referred to as an idle state, the device can be operated in a reduced power mode when compared to the first power state. This second power state is utilized rather than simply turning off power to the device altogether so that there is a reduced latency in reactivating the device in use in the particular circuit in which it is employed.
In addition such devices usually include some circuitry or mechanism for detecting when it is necessary to transition to an active state. Thus, even in a reduced power mode there can be a significant consumption of power. Some systems or devices include multiple electrical components more than one of which are inactive or in some form of an idle state at the same time. Many times the plurality of electrical components all need to be activated at or around the same time to participate in the performance of some operation or function. Thus it is anticipated in that scenario that the multiple electrical components which reside in an idle or inactive state are all expecting to be reactivated by the occurrence of a single event or a number of related events. Thus in some configurations where there are multiple electrical components operating in an idle or inactive state a significant amount of power is consumed as the components operate to detect the trigger to change power states. This active detection operation keeps the latency period, that is the time period for going from low power to active state, short. It would be beneficial in this environment if it was possible to further reduce power consumption, particularly in the mobile/battery operated environment to thereby preserve the lifetime of the battery charge.